Have you done your annual scorecard for management yet? Usually when asking most IT professionals this question in December, there is a puzzled or amused look in response. From there the conversation turns to how IT performance is measured, which typically it is not. Sure, there is some vague notion of system uptime and end-user customer service, but almost never specific metrics. While ignorance may be bliss for the organization, this approach is not fulfilling for IT personnel. Worse yet, memories tend to be short and for the 364 days of excellence only the 1 day of problems seem to be remembered or recognized.
Your first Scorecard may take a couple of hours, but subsequent years should be 30 minutes or less (especially if you add things like wins throughout the year). The following are some general guidelines:
- Put your marketing hat on and make an attractive one page document with the company logo and standard footer along with a two column layout. Use a title that fits your personality, but doesn’t come across as arrogant or confrontational like Information Technology 2010 Highlights.
- The first section should be brief history reminding management of years of commitment and the overall IT functions performed.
- The second section should be a list of at least 5, but no more than 12 wins for the organization. Wins should be business outcomes rather than technical and all about reducing cost, allowing the organization to do more transactions or win more customers, and unleashing employee productivity. As an example: Implemented cloud computing saving the firm $33,000 annually over on-premise hardware, software, and maintenance.
- The third section should be a list of competency or capabilities to reinforce worth.
- Finally, highlight big wins of the past or aggregated information such as saving the company over $200,000 in the last 5 years by implementing managed services.
You may also choose to add a graph or other information from case management, monitoring, and budgeting systems. Positive management reaction will spur conversations concerning IT need and goals. If nothing else, you have some solid evidence of value for salary or budget review.